The aim of this paper is to show the influence of the blessed Dorothy and her spirituality at the religious life of the parish and the shape and meaning of the interior of the Saint Peter and Paul church in Great Montau. The most important elements in the Dorothy’s spirituality were the passion piety and Eucharistic cult. The works of art from the Middle Ages, preserved in the church, confirm their important role also in the religious live of the parish community (Sacrament House, Pieta, Christ on the Cold Stone). In the modern times, when the Dorothy’s cult was renewed in the Kulm Diocese, the interior of the church was enlareged with three elements connected with Dorothy – the Latin inscrioption about her life, the procession paiting depicting her mystical communion, as well as her image within the southern side altar. Also in the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th Century the cult of the Recluse was living in the parish. After 1945 it was less cultivate. The cult was renewed in the 70’s of the 20th Century. Today is the Dorothy’s cult again living, and an important part of it are the works of art (procession painting, baptismal font). The temple in Montau is an extraordinaryexample among others Prussian churches, because here some cult continuity was preserved and thanks the works of art is it possible, to follow its history.
The study interprets the concept of piety according to James 1:27 with particular reference to both the Old Testament background and the theological context of the Letter of James. The category of purity not only determines the prerequisites for the approach to God, but also defines the boundaries between the community of the believers and the “world” considered as the main source of defilement to be avoided. The ethical requirement of keeping oneself unstained by the “world” and the requirement of social care provided to orphans and widows constitute – in the vertical dimension – the primary conditions for proper relation to God, which is similarly expressed in the horizontal dimension by visible acts of piety.
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